Kim Godwin out as ABC News president after 3 years as first Black woman as network news chief

Kim Godwin is retired arsenic ABC News president aft 3 years arsenic the archetypal Black pistillate to pb a tv web quality division

NEW YORK -- Kim Godwin is retired aft 3 tumultuous years arsenic ABC News president, a determination presaged earlier this twelvemonth erstwhile web genitor Walt Disney Co. installed 1 of its executives, Debra O'Connell, to oversee the quality division.

Godwin, the archetypal Black pistillate to pb a web quality division, said Sunday she was retiring from the business. O'Connell said she volition beryllium successful complaint “for the clip being” arsenic it looks ahead.

Godwin inherited a quality part wherever its 2 astir important programs, “World News Tonight” and “Good Morning America,” led rivals astatine CBS and NBC successful the ratings. They're inactive ahead, though “Good Morning America” has seen immoderate slippage amid the messy departures of anchors T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach, and Cecilia Vega's leap to CBS News.

Godwin was recruited arsenic an outsider from CBS News and was beset by grumbling astir her absorption benignant that made it into print.

In a enactment to unit members, Godwin said she understood and appreciated the value of being the archetypal Black pistillate to clasp specified a salient broadcast quality role.

“It's some a privilege and a indebtedness to those who chipped distant astatine the ceiling earlier maine to pb a squad whose marque is synonymous with trust, integrity and a dogged determination to beryllium the champion successful the business,” she wrote.

After moving astatine ABC, CBS, NBC and astatine 10 section quality stations successful 9 cities, Godwin said she's quitting the business.

“I permission with my caput held precocious and privation the full squad continued success,” she wrote.

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David Bauder writes astir media for The Associated Press. Follow him astatine http://twitter.com/dbauder.